CHAP. I I ]
CHRISTOPHER
COLUMBUS.
435
Diego Mendez, who was at Xaragua at the time, and doubtless present on such an important occasion, says incidentally in his last will and testament, that there were eighty-four caciques either burnt or hanged.* Las Casas says, that there were eighty who entered the house with Anacaona. The slaughter of the multitude must have been great ; and this was inflicted on an unarmed and unresisting throng. Several who escaped from the massacre fled in their canoes to an island about eight leagues dis tant, called Guanabo. They were pursued and taken, and con demned to slavery. As to the princess Anacaona, she was carried in chains to San Domingo. The mockery of a trial was given her, in which she was found guilty on the confessions wrung by tortures from her subjects, and on the testimony of their butchers ; and she was ignominiously hanged in the presence of the people whom she had so long and so signally befriended.† Oviedo has sought to throw a stigma on the character of this unfortunate princess, accusing her of great licentiousness ; but he was prone to crimi nate the character of the native princes, who fell victims to the ingratitude and injustice of his countrymen. Contemporary wri ters of greater authority have concurred in representing Anacaona as remarkable for her native propriety and dignity. She was adored by her subjects, so as to hold a kind of dominion over them even during the lifetime of her brother : she is said to have been skilled in composing the areytos, or legendary ballads of her nation, and may have conduced much towards producing that * Relacion hecha por Don Diego Mendez.
Navarrete, Col., tom. i.
p. 314. † Oviedo, Cronica de laa Indias, lib. iii. cap. 12. lib. ii. cap. 9.
Las Casas, Hist. Ind.,